The Australian Minister for Communications is Anika Wells, the elected member for parliament with 64.52% after second-round counting
Calling democraticly elected people you dislike a "bureaucrat" is disingenuous
Calling democraticly elected people you dislike a "bureaucrat" is disingenuous
Not everyone wants to live in a society where the American form of limited free speech is the accepted societal norm. Australia can choose its own views, so can France, and Britain, and Turkey, and China. It's not a colony of the us.
Censorship is the government suppressing information. If people actually believe that this is how things should be, let the government introduce official “censorship bills” and call publicly for “additional censorship measures”.
The fact that they aren’t doing that demonstrates that they feel the need to hide what they are really doing, which speaks of an inherent wrongness that has nothing to do with a US/non-US culture divide.
US views on the limited freedom of speech the US government allows are different to those of the limited freedom of speech that Australia, Germany, etc allow
All those countries limit freedom of speech, it doesn't make anything that doesn't exactly copy American "freedoms" (and indeed lack of freedom) wrong.
Of course argue this and HN will flag you
The more speech you have, the more powerful you are. That means those who can have more speech and more targetted speech (i.e. people who are wealthier) are more powerful. Not everyone likes that. You might, that doesn't make you right.
A big concern with these (and other associated laws) being pushed through is it grants the eSafety Commissioner powers to edict what’s allowed.
That position is appointed, not elected.
That said, whoever this Anika Wells woman is the law looks like a bad idea and it is nice that the US has found it in their interests to say something helpful.